


Noise Complaints

by BooBerryPancakes



Series: College AU [1]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, College, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 07:44:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6946177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BooBerryPancakes/pseuds/BooBerryPancakes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrick and Joe are roommates in a freshman dorm and Andy and Pete are RA's. Based on something that happened to me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Noise Complaints

Patrick was tired.

Which was obvious, he was a college student (albeit a new one) and the time had recently officially crossed from late Monday night to early Tuesday morning. He had been studying for his college algebra test for about 2 hours when he stopped at around 12:30, a little early for him, which was ironic considering that if he had stayed up this late in high school he would have fallen asleep on his laptop.

So far Patrick really liked college, his dorm was huge compared to those of his friends who had gone to different colleges (two separate bedrooms, a bathroom and a small kitchenette area), he was genuinely enjoying all his classes, he didn’t have a job this semester which left plenty of time for studying and fun, and his roommate Joe was an absolute dream.

Patrick had been worried about a bad roommate sure, but for the most part he knew he’d be able to deal with any annoying habits considering he had grown up with siblings. What he hadn’t expected was not only getting lucky enough to get along with his roommate but also falling into a deep platonic love for his roommate. He and Joe fit together well, better than any of Patrick’s friends and their roommates, who were either having constant conflict or just not talking to each other. He and Joe connected and complemented each other in just the right ways, and as cheesy as it sounded Patrick couldn’t help but compare them to an old married couple that were still very happy to be together but just slept in separate rooms.

Patrick didn’t kid himself, he knew part of his quick attachment was due to the conversation on move in day. Patrick had never told anyone before that he was gay, in all honesty he had only figured it out during the last stretch of high school. He didn’t think his old friends wouldn’t be supportive (his family he had no idea) but Patrick had never done anything with guys, and though he knew he didn’t need that physical confirmation to assure himself he was gay, Patrick didn’t see the point in making a big deal out of it to mix in with the last of the high school drama when there was no one special in his life anyway.

So Patrick had devoted too much energy in pre-college nerves into thinking about if he should tell his roommate, how he should, what to do if he did tell and his roommate was a homophobe. What if he moved out? What if he contacted Patrick’s parents? What if college wasn’t different from high school and he somehow told the whole campus and everyone turned against him?

Needless to say it was somewhat anticlimactic when at the freshman bar-b-q on the first night Joe asked him conversationally if he had seen any cute girls, and Patrick responded quickly and without really thinking “I like boys” before shoving his sandwich into his mouth to prevent himself from saying anything else without first considering the consequences. 

Joe had only nodded, his big curly hair also following the movement. “Yeah well, so far both the girls and guys all look the same to me.”

After a somewhat long pause of Patrick drinking water to aid his swallowing of the sandwich he finally asked, a little breathlessly, “Do you…?”

Joe shrugged, “I’m not 100% sure on that, but frankly I don’t really care about that right now anyway. All I know for sure is that I really like music and that I need to get good enough grades to keep my scholarship.”

Patrick had chuckled at that, and then seamlessly slid into a conversation with Joe that somehow successfully alternated between the fluidity and fluctuation of sexuality and types of music they both enjoyed, thus beginning their platonic yet passionate love affair.

Joe understood Patrick in a way friends hadn’t, somehow picking up on all of his emotional cues. He knew exactly when to stop bothering Patrick, what he could and couldn’t tease Patrick about in terms of appearance, and being able to tell when Patrick wanted to jam and when he wanted to study.

For his part Patrick didn’t think he was a bad roommate either. He didn’t make fun or question Joe for his occasionally eccentric behavior, he was able to tell which crazy ideas to encourage and which to stop without being obvious about it, and always remembered to take his NintendoDS with him when he left the dorm in case Joe needed to play a video game with him while Patrick was still out. Most of the mess around the apartment was Patrick’s, but Patrick also did most of the cleaning in the common area anyway (except the shower, since it was clearly Joe’s hair all over it). It just worked.

Currently, Patrick was cleaning. Joe’s door was closed, which was rare but didn’t mean anything besides Joe was only trying to really focus on work and also hide the fact he was listening to Taylor Swift. Patrick was still welcome to come in, and of course he would knock so Joe could quickly change the music and not be embarrassed, though Patrick often unashamedly listened to T Swift as well.

Patrick yawned, it was almost 1 am. He usually went to bed around 3:30, but today had been the day with his early class and he hadn’t gotten the nap he usually did on Mondays and Wednesdays. Patrick was debating on whether or not he should get to bed early after he finished up mopping when he heard a knock on the door.

Patrick looked up confused, often you could hear people knocking on the other doors in the hallway if you were standing in the common area, but was sure it had been on his door. He set the mop aside before walking to the door and looking through the peephole (having to stand on his toes just the tiniest bit, he was kind of short).

The blurry figures he saw through that did not adequately prepare him for when he opened the door. Both the boys were taller than him, but not by much. One was in glasses and had long red hair and a beard. The other had black hair and toned tan skin, wearing a tank top that showed off his tattooed arms.

“Hi,” the tattooed one said. 

Patrick heard Joe come out of his room behind him and suddenly remembered he was not currently wearing one of his trucker hats. So Patrick lifted his head in hopes to better hide the spot where his hair had already begun to thin on the back of his head.

“Hey,” he finally responded.

“So I’m Pete, this is Andy,” Pete continued, the red haired one, Andy, gave a small wave and smile when Pete introduced him. “We’re the RA’s on call tonight, and the girls below you called with a noise complaint.”

Patrick’s eyebrows came together in confusion, the girls downstairs had paid them a personal visit exactly one week ago. Well, Patrick had been asleep but Joe had recapped the whole visit to him. Joe said they repeated the phrase “consistently making noise” a lot and didn’t seem to fall on the smarter side of life. It had been irritating, but they didn’t do anything weird and he figured there was no way they were referring to the almost constant music since their neighbors on either side didn’t complain. So they had let it go and ignored it, figuring the girls just didn’t know what it was like to live below someone.

“Really?” Patrick asked, briefly wondering why Joe was being so quiet.

Pete nodded, “Have you played any music in the past 20 minutes or so?”

Patrick was currently wearing a Blink-182 t-shirt, so knew the odds were against him. He only then noticed Joe was no longer playing Taylor Swift, the reason for this being it was too quiet to really make a difference in sound whether it was off or on so because of that and because he knew Joe would be embarrassed Patrick didn’t think it would hurt anyone to omit that detail. “No? I mean I was playing some Bowie when I was studying but that was like an hour ago now.”

“Bowie?” Pete asked, smiling.

Behind him, Andy rolled his eyes and muttered, “Come on Wentz, we’re on the job right now.”

Patrick felt himself begin to flush, partly embarrassed and partly confused as to why. 

Pete cleared his throat, “Right okay, so no music?”

Patrick shook his head, and then almost as an afterthought, “Was the complaint about music specifically?”

Pete nodded, “Yeah but all looks good here. We gotta get back down to the main floor now, you have the number for the RA on call right?”

“Yeah, we’ve got the magnet they handed out on our fridge,” Patrick said, tilting his head in the direction their mini fridge was.

Pete nodded, “All right then, have a good night.” He and Andy both gave a little wave as they turned and walked back down the hallway. Patrick returned the wave, and as he turned away from the shutting door he saw that Joe had also waved them goodbye, his hand still in the air.

“Well,” Joe said, “Damn.”

“I know,” Patrick responded, shaking his head slightly as he recomposed himself. “That Pete-“

“Pete? No, no, _Andy_.” Joe clarified.

“Whatever,” Patrick said, knowing he’d want to revisit this topic of conversation later. “Okay like, the girls downstairs complained about noise? Seriously?”

Joe shrugged, “I mean it is 1 am, and, um, I kind of was playing-“

“It doesn’t matter,” Patrick cut him off, hearing the hesitance in Joe’s voice and interpreting as his reluctance to admit what he’d been listening too, even though he knew Patrick was aware. “I could barely hear it out here, outside your door. And none of the neighbors, or anyone in our hall for that matter, is complaining. They need to fucking get over themselves.”

Joe nodded, now more on board with being pissed at the girls downstairs. “Yeah you’re right they are dumb.”

“Fuck it,” Patrick said, an idea entering his mind. He walked past Joe and into his room, grabbing his phone from their counter on the way.

“Uh, fuck what exactly?” Joe asked, poking his head into Patrick’s door while leaning on the door frame.

In lieu of an actual response, Patrick just smirked as he found what he was looking for on his Spotify and started playing music by the band Ninja Sex Party at full volume. Then, proceed to climb up onto his tall twin bed, before immediately jumping off of it, making the room shake slightly from impact.

“What the fuck Patrick?” Joe asked, not exactly mad more just surprised and irritated from Patrick’s lack of explanation.

“Dude if they’re gonna complain then I’m gonna give them a fucking reason too,” Patrick explained. “Like if we’re going to get in trouble we might as well have fun, right?”

“Yeah, except we’re _not_ in trouble,” Joe said in response. “But we will be if they complain again, and the RA’s see they actually have a fucking reason to. Like, I’m all for not changing our behavior since it’s ridiculous they complained in the first place, but technically the smart thing to do would be to try to not bother them again.”

“Okay sure, _but_ ” Patrick responded, “Even in the worst case scenario where we do get in trouble do you know what it involves?”

“What?” Joe asks, clearly not amused

“Those two RA’s coming back,” Patrick supplied, smirking.

Joe’s eyes widened slightly in understanding. “Oh, I see your game Patrick Stumph. Yeah, I’m totally on board now.”

 

After around 45 minutes of blasting music of choice language and dropping anything heavy enough to make a ‘thud’ sound from as high as they could get it, Joe and Patrick gave up trying to rile their downstairs neighbors back up. It was annoying that when they were literally giving them reason to complain to be ignored, but Patrick and Joe both had school work to do so decided to give it a rest. After all, if they really were caught making that much noise it probably wouldn’t be the best second impression.

So Patrick studied for his test for about another half hour before deciding to go to bed. He’d have plenty of time to study for it tomorrow and he couldn’t focus anyway. Not exactly because he was too tired, he just kept fantasizing about being asleep.

So after changing into his pajamas and telling Joe goodnight Patrick crawled into bed, pulling his sleeping mask from under his pillow. His sister had given it to him on move in day, which was awful kind of her considering Patrick had teased her for wearing one while growing up and even pretended to be embarrassed to have received one. But his older brother Kevin had cracked and gotten one when he moved to college, explaining there was always some light sneaking into a dorm and it was never nearly as dark as the suburbs they grew up in. So Patrick hadn’t been surprised to find himself actually using it, and within a week of living at college was texting his sister thank you for her gift.

Patrick was almost asleep, when he felt Joe shake him. “Patrick,” he hissed, “Someone just knocked.”

Which made Patrick grumpy. He was grumpy to be woken up, though not that Joe had woken him because if it was the RA’s then Patrick would have been annoyed if Joe let him sleep through it and if it was the girls from downstairs Patrick had promised his roommate last time they visited that he would deal with the girls the next time. Mostly, he was grumpy at the girls. Actually no, Patrick decided, he was more than grumpy. He was an emotion that was much stronger than irritated but not quite yet at pissed. 

Patrick had no need to dwell on that though, because when he opened the door, blanket he had pulled from his bed wrapped around him, it was Andy and Pete again, not the girls. But this only added to Patrick’s irritation because, seriously, if they were going to complain they should have done it around an hour ago when Patrick and Joe were actually making noise.

“So,” Pete started, somewhat awkwardly. “We got another noise complaint, but uh considering some of the context clues,” at this he gestured to Patrick’s sleeping mask which had been pushed up to the top of his head, “I’m guessing it’s another false alarm.” 

Patrick blinked, a mix of tired, angry, and embarrassment from standing in front of someone who was hot and older with a sleeping mask on his head. Thankfully Joe filled the silence asking, “Uh, what exactly did they say the noise was this time?”

Pete shrugged and said, “Something about a banging noise?”

“Oh, well that could have been me.” Joe said. “I mean all I was doing was hole-punching some stuff for a class, but it could possibly, I mean-“

Andy cut him off there, “Don’t worry about that. I doubt that’s the noise they were complaining about, but even if it is it’s not like that’s something disruptive you should stop.”

Joe nodded and smiled, appreciating the reassurance from Andy that their noise level was acceptable.

“So like,” Patrick said, rubbing his eyes a bit. He no longer had contacts in, and it was harder to focus on Pete. “Are we in any kind of trouble? Do you have to document this or anything?”

Pete chewed on his bottom lip in thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Usually we’d have to, just report that it happened, you know? But clearly, there is nothing wrong here.” He looked over his shoulder at Andy, “Do you disagree?”

Andy shook his head, “We shouldn’t play favorites like this, but you guys seem much cooler than those girls, and you aren’t doing anything wrong anyway.”

Pete nodded at him then turned back to Patrick smiling, “Anyway, sorry to bother you. I’ll let you get back to your beauty sleep now, you probably need a lot of it to be that cute.”

Patrick felt his face heat up instantly, and with all the social skills his brain could muster in its tired and embarrassed state said, “Yeah, thanks, good night then!” in and falsely chipper and clearly tense voice before shutting the door.

Patrick slowly turned around to face Joe, who was clearly holding back laughter. “Well,” Patrick said, “I’m going to bed. Don’t wake me up for anything tonight.” With that he walked past Joe and into his room, closing the door. Then on second thought, opened it and poked his head back out to shout “Not for anything!” before slamming it shut again, and through the thin walls he heard Joe let out his laughter and swear he heard another, fainter laugh as well.


End file.
